The Greek

Luke Smith Sepember 1, 2017

1 The Origin of the First Alphabet

The is the first true alphabet in the world; it is derived from the Phoenician “Alphabet”, which in linguistic terms is not a proper alphabet, but an .

Original Phoenician Greek Name Classical Modern Α α ε ’ālep “ox” [P] ऀ , [a] [fi] bēt “house” [] ँ Β, β [b] [v] gīml “camel” [g] ं Γ, γ [g] [γ] dālet “door” [d] ः Δ, δ [d] [D] hē “window” [] ऄ Ε, ε [e] [e] wāw “” [w] अ Υ, υ [y] [i] zayin “weapon” [z] आ Ζ, ζ [dz], [zd] [z] hēt “wall” [ħ] इ Η, η [ǣ] [i] ˙ tēt “wheel” [tP] ई Θ, θ [th] [θ] ˙ yōd “hand” [j] उ Ι, ι [i] [i] kāp “palm” [k] ऊ Κ, κ [k] [k] lāmed “goad” [l] ऋ Λ, λ [l] [l] mēm “water” [m] ऌ Μ, µ [m] [m] nūn “serpent” [n] ऍ Ν, ν [n] [n] sāmek “fish” [s] ऎ Ξ, ξ [ks] [ks] ’ “eye” [Q] ए Ο, ο [o] [o] pē “mouth” [p] ऐ Π, π [p] [p] sādē “papyrus” [sP] ऑ ˙ qōp “needle eye” [q] ऒ rēs “head” [r] ओ Ρ, ρ [r] [r] šīn “tooth” [S] औ Σ, σ, ς [s] [s] tāw “mark” [t] क Τ, τ [t] [t] Φ, ϕ [ph] [f] Χ, χ [kh] [x] Ψ, ψ [ps] [ps] Ω, ω [O] [o]

Here’s where the innovation of the Greek alphabet came from: There were several Phoenician sounds alien to Greek (ऀ [P], ऄ [h], अ [w], इ [ħ], उ [j], ए [Q]), so had no reason to borrow them as is. Instead, the Greeks decided to use these symbols to designate per se. This repurposing ammounted to the invention of the the alphabet. Later Greek also marked “” [h] with a over the following . Greek also has a voiceless [r], which is written as a “ρ” with the same marking. English words written with an “rh” come from this (rhetoric,˚rhapsody, rhesus, rhino, etc.). Additionally, in the Middle Ages, diatritics were added to vowels to communicate the pitch accent system. Acute accents were for high pitch, grave accents for low, and for high, then falling pitches on long vowels. 2 The Logic of the Ancient Greek Alphabet

Labial Dental Velar Front Back Voiceless Π, π Τ, τ Κ, κ High Ι, ι Υ, υ Voiced Β, β Δ, δ Γ, γ Ε, ε Ο, ο Aspirated Φ, ϕ Θ, θ Χ, χ Η, η Ω, ω Affricates Ψ, ψ (Ζ, ζ) Ξ, ξ Low Α, α Nasals Μ, µ Ν, ν Γ, γ Others: Ρ, ρ [r], Λ, λ [l], Σ, σ [s] Ancient Greek had a three-way voicing distinction between voiced [b, d, g], voiceless plosives [p, t, k] and aspirated plosives [ph, th, kh]; the system reflects this. There are also letters for the aspirates [ps], [dz/zd] and [ks]. These are pretty unique in that [ps] and [ks] are not , but are very com- mon clusters due to the of Greek where [-s] is the nominative suffix. You never will write κσ, but always ξ, etc. Some Greek have a five-vowel system, some have a seven-vowel system. Generally, Greek is has the most conservative vowel system of all Indo-European languages, remaining relatively unchanged since Proto-Indo-European. As an additional note, “Υ, υ” is pronounced as [y], not [i] in Attic (Athenian) Greek.

Figure 1: Boustrophedon (ox-turning) writing is 3 Things go a little haywire in Modern the intermediate form between right-to-left and Greek writing left-to-right writing. 3.1 Aspirates become fricates In Ancient Greek, “ϕ”, “θ” and “χ” are all aspirates ([ph], [th] and [kh]), but they each become the [f], [θ] and [x], which we usually associate them with in English.

3.2 Voiced Plosives Notice that all of the Greek voiced plosives have become fricatives in ! This is because these sounds became fricatives by lenition (compare languages like Spanish). There are still phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/ in modern Greek, but these are express by the digraphs “µπ”, “ντ” and “γκ” respectively. Opportunity: Most languages with digraphs use digraphs to express fricatives or affricates: think “ch”, “th”, “kh” in various languages. But in Modern Greek, this is the opposite: there are stops, but not fricatives, while the single characters are the fricatives.

3.3 Vowels The vowel system of Modern Greek has greatly simplified, causing many vowel letters to become homophonous. “η” and “υ” have merged with “ι” at [i]. “ω” and “ο” merge into [o]. Many of the the commonplace diphthongs are lost, e.g. “οι” is pronounced [i].

3.4 Accent marks Modern Greek no longer has a pitch accent system, although ac- cent marks are still used in words in the language. Acute accents symbolize lexical in polysyllabic words. It also employes a diaereis to show when a sequence of vowels is not supposed to be a diphthong.

Figure 2: Miniscule (lower case) letters did not develop until after 1000AD as a kind of shorthand for writing on parchment.